Joe Kudla of Vuori helps early-stage founders on the Advice Line, tackling challenges like medical apparel growth, luxury handbags in the US, and colorful skins for ski gloves. Insights on building a luxury brand, pricing strategies, and sustainable outerwear business. Reflecting on the entrepreneurial journey and seeking more entrepreneur stories.
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Quick takeaways
Balancing direct-to-consumer and wholesale sales is crucial for business growth.
Prioritizing community building and user engagement enhances brand awareness.
Evaluating cost structures and margins is essential for successful wholesale expansion.
Deep dives
Direct-to-Consumer versus Wholesale Strategy
Steve from Skittens seeks advice on scaling his business, focusing on direct-to-consumer sales or pursuing wholesale opportunities. Joe advises balancing the two strategies, emphasizing the importance of community building, direct engagement with influential users, and focusing on building relationships and brand trust in wholesale accounts.
Developing Product Awareness
Steve, the founder of Skittens, discusses the challenge of building awareness for his product through limited success with Facebook ads. Joe recommends prioritizing product promotions, leveraging user-generated content, and partnering with artists to enhance the product designs to drive interest and engagement.
Building a Community
Joe stresses the significance of building a community around the Skittens product, emphasizing product seeding, showcasing designs by partnering artists, and enhancing the product's visual appeal to attract customers. He highlights the power of user engagement and community building for successful brand promotion.
Balancing Cost Structure and Margins
Joe suggests evaluating cost structures and margins to make wholesale expansion financially viable for Skittens. He advises exploring alternatives in the supply chain to ensure profitability while expanding into wholesale accounts, aligning costs with scalability and maximizing opportunities for growth.
Focus on Strategic Expansion
Encouraged by the innovative features of the Skittens product, Joe emphasizes strategic expansion into lucrative retail locations, such as ski shops and niche stores. He suggests leveraging the unique designs and functionalities of Skittens to create traction and drive impulse purchases, targeting specific influential consumers to amplify brand recognition.
Vuori founder Joe Kudla joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they work through business challenges with three early-stage founders.
Today we meet Laurie, a Florida-based physician with savings to invest back into her fashionable scrubs company. Then Brendan, who wants to bring his Irish handbags to the American luxury market. And Steve in Colorado, who’s exploring wholesale opportunities for his colorful skins for ski gloves.
If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.
And to hear Vuori’s founding story, check out Joe's first appearance on the show in 2023.
This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo.
You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.